New Pregame Trickery: Distract the Visiting Team With Bad YouTube Videos

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A video of “Pennsylvania Polka” performed by cast members of “The Lawrence Welk Show” played above the court before Rutgers faced Hartford recently.CreditBryan Anselm for The New York Times

By Kelly Whiteside

Jan. 5, 2018

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — As the Seton Hall men’s basketball team warmed up for a game at Rutgers recently, a strange baritone filled the arena. Players stopped their stretching routines, gaping at a giant video board overhead playing a 1970s video clip of a Russian singer crooning, “Trolololo la/Oh ha ha ha ho!”

In the video, the singer, Eduard Khil, wearing a double-breasted suit, a frozen smile and a coif like the clip-on hair of a toy figurine, ambles across a mustard-colored backdrop like a mannequin come to life. It was impossible to look away.

Which was the point.

The brief disruption to Seton Hall’s pregame preparation was a form of old-school gamesmanship with a new-school twist. “Their players were looking up at the video board, and we thought, ‘Wow this is making a little bit of difference,’” said Mike Greengarten, Rutgers’s assistant director of marketing, who played a role in having the video shown. “‘It’s getting in their head a little bit.’”

Distraction has long been part of college basketball. As opponents shoot free throws, fans wave giant cardboard heads or act out behind the basket. Teams often use music to troll their opponents during the game.

And pregame antics have been common, too; more than 30 years ago, Iowa had the visiting players’ locker room painted pink.

But for this generation, YouTube clips on an arena screen seem much more of the moment, and Rutgers appears to be one of the few universities to deploy such curated psychological warfare.

Its impact is unclear. The Scarlet Knights are 2-2 at home (including an upset of Seton Hall) since employing the pregame antics in December, but at least they’re able to laugh about it.

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The video producers Colin Osborne, left, and Tim DeMartin in a control room.CreditBryan Anselm for The New York Times

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Mike Greengarten, Assistant Director of Marketing, before a game. After playing a Mr. Trololo video before Rutgers upset Seton Hall, Greengarten thought, “Wow this is making a little bit of difference. It’s getting in their head a little bit.’”CreditBryan Anselm for The New York Times

“Everyone is so sensitive about everything. This stuff is supposed to be fun,” the ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas said. “The fact that the N.B.A. has more fun than college is disturbing. They can enjoy what’s going on around them and then lock into what they’re supposed to do. The college guys certainly can do it, too.”

Seton Hall officials declined to comment on the “Mr. Trololo” video. Representatives at the schools that beat Rutgers while being subjected to the bizarre clips, Stony Brook and Hartford, did not respond to requests for comment.

Rutgers defeated Wisconsin on Friday at home with its most extensive playlist yet — seven minutes of YouTube absurdity that included singing bananas in pajamas and Donny and Marie Osmond.

“I told the guys to stay focused,” said Aaron Moesch, a Wisconsin senior. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like that before in any arena.”

Some see gamesmanship, sportsmanship and humor as a strange mix. The idea of tricks, however benign, to rattle rivals “seems antithetical to hosting someone, to the roots of competition to strive together,” said Jack Bowen, author of the book “Sport, Ethics and Leadership.”

But he had to admit: It’s funny.

“There is something clever in what they’re doing,” Bowen said. “On one hand I like it; it’s not in your face. It’s not doing anything explicitly wrong. It’s the kind of things that millennials will say, ‘Wow, that is an awesome way to throw these people off.’”

The videos do resonate with the intended audience.

“We’re the first generation to grow up with YouTube,” said Jordan Cohen, a Rutgers senior who recorded the Mr. Trololo moment and tweeted it.

The idea for the pregame distractions arose from a bit of one-upmanship. During Rutgers’s warm-ups at Minnesota in early December, the Golden Gophers played songs such as the Weather Girls’ “It’s Raining Men.”

“We heard some ridiculous songs and we were like, ‘We can do better than that,’” Greengarten said. Four members of the athletic staff, including two twentysomethings, compiled a list of silly YouTube clips for pregame deployment.

In the game after the Seton Hall upset, against Stony Brook, a clip of “Dominick the Donkey” — Hey, chingedy ching, hee haw, hee haw/It’s Dominick the donkey — appeared on screen as Stony Brook warmed up. A video of the Village People’s “Go West” followed, but it was cut short when Rutgers players emerged from their locker room for pregame introductions. (The Scarlet Knights warm up to a selection of hip-hop music.)

Nowadays, it’s hard for Greengarten and the video crew to walk through the Scarlet Knights’ athletic offices without staff members suggesting some random yodeling video.

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The music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” played on a video screen before a recent game at Rutgers.CreditBryan Anselm for The New York Times

Amid the monotony of loading the routine items on the video board such as player introductions or advertising spots, there is now a little opportunity for creativity.

And given the outer reaches of online absurdity, the list of possibilities is long. Greengarten has put 100 suggestions on a list, categorized under genres like “Songs That Make No Sense” (see “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins,” sung by Leonard Nimoy). Under “Funny Sounds/Videos,” the “Whistler Mullet Guy” looms large.

In the hours before the game against Hartford, Colin Osborne, the production director, and Tim DeMartin, the production coordinator, scrolled through clips on their control system.

At first I was afraid/I was petrified. …

“Gloria Gaynor and disco roller skates, come on,” Osborne said of the video for “I Will Survive,” but ultimately it didn’t make the cut.

“Pennsylvania Polka,” performed by cast members of “The Lawrence Welk Show,” did. Hartford players paused their pregame passing drills and stared at the video board as it segued into the “Brady Bunch” kids singing “It’s a Sunshine Day.”

The effect of this mash-up was fleeting. The Rutgers team sprinted onto the court, and Cindy Brady disappeared into the pixelated ether. The pep band led the “R-U, Rah-Rah” cheer of the university’s fight song.

Rutgers fell short, losing by 60-58. In an otherwise forgettable performance, the oompah of a polka stood out as a highlight.

Against Wisconsin, Rutgers returned to its muse, who had been absent since the victory against Seton Hall. In the final moments of the Badgers’ warm-up, Mr. Trololo appeared on the video board. Rutgers won, 64-60. Trololo lololo lololo.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: A New Form of Mental Warfare: Zany Videos During Warm-Ups. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe